Combat· American Revolutionary War
Loss of Trumbull to HMS Iris and HMS General Monk
A year after her brutal duel with the Watt, the hard-luck frigate Trumbull under Captain James Nicholson met her end off the Delaware Capes, run down by the British frigate HMS Iris and the General Monk.
Trumbull's Continental Marine detachment fought during a short, sharp engagement, but the frigate, undermanned and with an unreliable crew, could not hold out against two opponents, and Nicholson struck his colors. The Marines passed into captivity with the rest of the company, some held on Long Island. The capture removed yet another major frigate from a Continental Navy already reduced to a handful of ships. Trumbull had been the last of the original thirteen frigates Congress authorized in 1775 still in service, and her loss marked the near-extinction of America's own fighting fleet, leaving the cause increasingly dependent on French naval power for the rest of the war.
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Record no. 152